Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adsorption heat pump system and a method of generating cooling power.
Description of the Related Art
Heat cycle systems using adsorption heat pumps have been hitherto used in a variety of fields, and application thereof has been made in apparatuses for air-conditioning and heating, hot water heaters, and the like.
Those adsorption heat pumps that have been suggested so far each include, in general, a pair of adsorbers, a condenser, and an evaporator (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 2010-151386 and 2006-125713).
In an adsorption heat pump having such a configuration, if there is a large difference between the temperature upon adsorption and the temperature upon desorption in the adsorbers, the sensible heat loss (the amount of heat that cannot be utilized in actual energy exchange) becomes large. In an actual adsorption heat pump, it is desired to obtain cooling power more efficiently.
Furthermore, in the adsorption heat pump described in JP-A No. 2010-151386, the end timing of the desorption process and the end timing of the adsorption process in the adsorbers are respectively determined separately; however, it is desired to enable the generation of cooling power more continuously.
Furthermore, as an example of utilizing a heating mode that increases the coefficient of performance (COP), an adsorption heat pump type hot water heater has been suggested (for example, “24th Technology Development Investigation Business Result Presentation [P5.1.2] Development of high efficiency kerosene combustion apparatus using adsorption heat pump”, [online], June 2010, Japan Petroleum Energy Center, [searched on Nov. 22, 2012], see the Internet <URL: http://www.pecj.or.jp/japanese/report/2010report/24data/p512.pdf>). In this system, usually, switching of the operation mode or a hot water supply operation is carried out by switching of the flow channel using a three-way valve. Specifically, an operation of adsorbing a fluid to one of the adsorbers and desorbing the fluid from the other adsorber (that is, regeneration of the adsorbers), and an operation of desorbing the fluid from the one adsorber and adsorbing the fluid to the other adsorber are carried out alternately.
In addition to this, adsorption chillers that operate as described above, and the like are also known (for example, “Adsorption chiller of Union Industry; Principle of adsorption chiller”, [online], Union Industry Co., Ltd., [searched on Nov. 22, 2012], see the Internet <URL: http://www.union-reitouki.com/chiller/principle.html>).
In recent years, more attention has been paid to the preservation of the global environment, and in consideration of the fact that the movement toward energy saving has become more active, there is a demand for a further increase in the thermal efficiency even in those apparatuses that utilize adsorption heat pumps.